Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-45l2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T08:10:28.769Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

PROCEDURAL JUSTICE AND THE PROBLEM OF INTELLECTUAL DEFERENCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2014

Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is a well-established fact that we tend to underestimate our susceptibility to cognitive bias on account of overconfidence, and thereby often fail to listen to intellectual advice aimed at reducing such bias. This is the problem of intellectual deference. The present paper considers this problem in contexts where educators attempt to teach students how to avoid bias for purposes of instilling epistemic virtues. It is argued that recent research in social psychology suggests that we can come to terms with this problem in two steps, the second of which involves educators communicating their intellectual advice in a procedurally just manner. The components of the relevant form of procedural justice are specified and related to Miranda Fricker and David Coady's notions of epistemic justice. Finally, a series of objections are considered and responded to.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , December 2014 , pp. 423 - 442
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ahlstrom-Vij, K. 2013 a. ‘In Defense of Veritistic Value Monism.’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 94: 19–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahlstrom-Vij, K. 2013 b. ‘Why We Cannot Rely on Ourselves for Epistemic Improvement.’ Philosophical Issues (a supplement to Noûs), 23: 276–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahlstrom-Vij, K. 2013 c. Epistemic Paternalism: A Defence. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahlstrom-Vij, K. Forthcoming. ‘People Listen to People Who Listen: Instilling Virtues of Deference.’ Forthcoming in Miller, C. (ed.), The Character Project: New Perspectives in Psychology, Philosophy, and Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ahlstrom-Vij, K. Manuscript. ‘The Social Virtue of Blind Deference.’ Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Ahlstrom-Vij, K. and Grimm, S. R. 2013. ‘Getting it Right.’ Philosophical Studies, 166: 329–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alicke, M. D. 1985. ‘Global Self-Evaluation as Determined by the Desirability and Controllability of Trait Adjectives.’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49: 1621–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armor, D. 1999. ‘The Illusion of Objectivity: A Bias in the Perception of Freedom from Bias.’ Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering, 59: 5163.Google Scholar
Baehr, J. 2011. The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Battaly, H. 2012. ‘Virtue Epistemology.’ In Greco, J. and Turri, J. (eds), Virtue Epistemology: Contemporary Readings, pp. 3–32. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Blader, S. L. and Tyler, T. R. 2003. ‘A Four-Component Model of Procedural Justice: Defining the Meaning of a ‘Fair’ Process.’ Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29: 747–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, J. D. 1986. ‘Evaluations of Self and Others: Self-Enhancement Biases in Social Judgments.’ Social Cognition, 4: 353–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coady, D. 2010. ‘Two Concepts of Epistemic Injustice.’ Episteme, 7: 101–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Driver, J. 2001. Uneasy Virtue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischhoff, B., Slovic, P., and Lichtenstein, S. 1977. ‘Knowing with Certainty: The Appropriateness of Extreme Confidence.’ Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 3: 552–64.Google Scholar
Fricker, M. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, A. 1999. Knowledge in a Social World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawthorne, J. and Srinivasan, A. 2013. ‘Disagreement without Transparency: Some Bleak Thoughts.’ In Christensen, D. and Lackey, J. (eds), The Epistemology of Disagreement: New Essays, pp. 9–30. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrion, M. and Fischhoff, B. 1986. ‘Assessing Uncertainty in Physical Constants.’ American Journal of Physics, 54: 791–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hume, D. 1975. Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Moral, 3rd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press; originally published in 1777.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, J. S. 2001. Utilitarianism, 2nd edn. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett; originally published in 1861.Google Scholar
Pronin, E. 2007. ‘Perception and Misperception of Bias in Human Judgment.’ Trends in Cognitive Science, 11: 37–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pronin, E. and Kugler, M. 2007. ‘Valuing Thoughts, Ignoring Behavior: The Introspection Illusion as a Source of the Bias Blind Spot.’ Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43: 565–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pronin, E., Lin, D., and Ross, L. 2002. ‘The Bias Blind Spot: Perceptions of Bias in Self versus Others.’ Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28: 369–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sidgwick, H. 1884. The Methods of Ethics. London: Macmillan and Co.Google Scholar
Taylor, S. E. and Brown, J. D. 1988. ‘Illusion and Well-being: A Social Psychological Perspective on Mental Health.’ Psychological Bulletin, 103: 193–210.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. 1982. ‘Availability: A Heuristic for Judging Frequency and Probability.’ In Kahneman, D., Slovic, P., and Tversky, A. (eds), Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, pp. 163–78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, T. R. 2006 a. Why People Obey the Law, 2nd edn. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, T. R. 2006 b. ‘Psychological Perspectives on Legitimacy and Legitimation.’ Annual Review of Psychology, 57: 375–400.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tyler, T. R. 2006 c. ‘Process Utility and Help Seeking: What do People want from Experts?’ Journal of Economic Psychology, 27: 360–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, T. R. 2011. Why People Cooperate: The Role of Social Motivations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Tyler, T. R. and Blader, S. L. 2005. ‘Can Businesses Effectively Regulate Employee Conduct? The Antecedents of Rule Following in Work Settings.’ Academy of Management Journal, 48: 1143–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, T. R., Callahan, P., and Frost, J. 2007. ‘Armed and Dangerous (?): Motivating Rule Adherence among Agents of Social Control.’ Law and Society Review, 41: 457–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar